The present invention relates to check processing, and is particularly directed to a method of processing a check and an apparatus therefor.
A typical check has a number of fields including a courtesy amount field, a legal amount field, a payor field, a payee field, a date field, and a signature field. The check may be of the personal type or of the business type. A known way to extract data from the check is to use a combination of image processing techniques and recognition techniques. The check is typically moved past an image processing device such as a scanner to obtain a digitized image of the check. The digitized image of the check is then stored in memory.
Data contained in the courtesy amount field and/or data contained in the legal amount field are usually recognized from the digitized image of the check. More specifically, characters contained in the courtesy amount field and/or the legal amount field are located prior to being subjected to a handwriting and/or character recognition engine at a subsequent operation. The recognition engine applies recognition techniques to the located character to establish the amount of the check. It would be desirable to recognize data from other fields of the check to provide other useful information.